Talk:Namesake

Popular Usage needs a HUGE rewrite
If a person founds a company and names it after themselves, is the company really their namesake? Michael Dell and Dell, Inc., for example, is not something I'd call a namesake. Specifically I'd look at something named in honor of someone *by someone else*, for example the teddy bear. The bear was an actual bear involved in a bear hunting party attended by Teddy Roosevelt, but the name was chosen in honor of him by someone unrelated. Another example would be Alice blue, named to honor Alice Roosevelt, Teddy's daughter, in reference to her blue eyes. Another would be Berkeley Breathed's Calvin and Hobbes characters, named for philosophers.

I find almost the entire list of examples to be bad examples, except for the science and sports sections, and the science one is incredibly incomplete. There are dozens of scientific terms named in honor of people: Joule, Watt, Hertz, Kelvin, Ampere, Coulomb, Gauss, Newton, Newton, Descartes, etc.

Geography is full of namesakes. Victoria, NSW, Australia, is named after Queen Victoria; Georgia, USA, is named after King George; the state of Washington in the US, the city in the District of Columbia, and various universities around the US were named after George Washington; The District of Columbia and Colombia are both named for Columbus.

Wine bottles are named for Biblical kings; the moon of Pluto was named for the discoverer's girlfriend; US military ships are named in honor of earlier ships, or cities, or battles, depending on the ship; US military bases are named for servicemembers; Ben & Jerry's produces pun-incorporating ice cream names, such as Cherry Garcia and Phish Food. Even a child named for an ancestor is done to honor the ancestor.

I propose an entire rewrite, but I'd like to see if anyone has any objections.TychaBrahe (talk) 21:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Peculiar use (abuse?) of "namesake".
According to the definition, the namesake must be the same, or similar, to the original name.

However, it seems to be common in the UK to use the word "namesake" to mean "having the same meaning in a different language", e.g. if a ship were named "The Dog", these people would say that it was named after the French ship, "Le Chien", i.e. that "The Dog" is the namesake of "Le Chien" due to the fact that they both have the same meaning. For example, one sees, on numerous sites on the internet, the identical phrase repeated re Queen Victoria being "Boudicca's "namesake"" (e.g. see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodicea, en.citizendium.org/wiki/Boudica,famous, y2u.co.uk/F_Boudica_Rebel_Queen_​England.htm , english.turkcebilgi.com/Boudica , www.digplanet.com/wiki/Boudica ,aplaisancewithmossflower.blogspot.com ,wn.com/Prasutagus , etc.). Obviously there is a tremendous amount of cutting and pasting from some original (and unreferenced) source, but it is impossible to find the original because almost all of these are undated. The "justification" is supposedly the fact that Boudicca and Victoria, when translated into English, both mean "Victory", but this is a highly irregular use of the word "namesake", since their names are not even remotely similar, other than ending in "a".

If anyone has reason to believe that it is acceptable to use the word "namesake" in the above-described peculiar manner, please provide a justification or citation, otherwise one can only assume that this peculiar usage is unacceptable.77Mike77 (talk) 17:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal
November 2013 proposal to merge List of companies named after people to a section of the article Namesake; specifically Namesake. Input welcome. Discussion is to be held here (as it is the target article and section). GenQuest "Talk to Me" 09:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - Well, seeing as how I'm the one who suggested the merger, I will restate my reasoning here: Seeing as how both listings being referenced essentially contain the same information, there shouldn't be TWO listings of companies named after people. 76.235.248.47 (talk) 09:00, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I found this article while searching for "Namesake", and I found the article to be useful and informative. A better solution might be to merge the redundant section within “Examples of namesakes' into appropriate articles. It makes no sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolovis (talk) 22:17, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - Why would THAT be a better solution? The "namesake" article is here FOR A REASON, to provide lists of things, companies, etc. named after people, hence the name of the article. The separate article giving a list of the companies named after people SHOULD be merged with the appropriate section in THIS article, NOT existing as its own article. (There would be NO good reason to give each list its own article, rather than having the namesake lists posted in THIS article) If anything, what makes NO SENSE is taking the lists of companies, objects, etc. named after people from this article & giving each list its own article. This would NOT be an example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. (Not sure why you think that THIS situation is an example of that concept) This is an example of going through & removing a redundancy from Wikipedia, because a section of an article that contains essentially the same info as the separate article already exists, therefore there is NO need to have the separate article in the first place. What your suggestion would do is create unnecessary articles. 76.235.248.47 (talk) 01:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose The description of what a namesake is is thematically separate from the long list of namesakes. That a list of namesakes has accreted in this article is unfortunate, but easily fixed. I suggest undoing the redirection of List of companies named after people and removing the list from this article. Also, please allow an uninvolved editor to close the merge discussion. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 06:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment - Well, the list of commercial entities & products serves as an example of the definition of "namesake". Plus, it was GenQuest who said in response to the discussion, and I quote, "stale, no opposition to proposal. Awaiting bold merger by nominator or someone familiar with subject." So, that (bold merger) is exactly what I attempted to do. However, as I stated on my talk page, "Well, if you truly believe in what you're saying, feel free to undo what I did. I'm willing to see if anyone has a better solution for the situation". 76.235.248.47 (talk) 07:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've removed the long list of companies from this article. The possible merger shouldn't be fait accompli. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 07:23, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * So, when is someone going to go through & close the merge discussion, as it seems that it's been decided that, rather than place the list of namesake companies in the namesake article, a link to the article that contains the list would be placed in the namesake article? 76.235.248.47 (talk) 22:34, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Wiktionary
I see that you've re-added the citation to Wiktionary. Wiktionary is not a reliable source, as confirmed by consensus in this discussion. The same point is discussed in this essay. Could you please explain why you feel the citation is appropriate in spite of this? —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:43, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I realize that Wiktionary is not a reliable source in the usual sense. That's why I've cited it only in confirmation of several reliable sources.  I use it as an example, a primary source, demonstrating the colloquial use of the term namesake; not as an authority prescribing a certain usage.  That's what all the references I gave for that statement really amount to, even though the others (published dictionaries) are generally regarded as authorities.


 * Note that the final posting in the discussion Mr. Granger cites concludes with a statement not found (anymore, at least) in the policy it purports to quote. There is no general prohibition on citation of wikis.  On the contrary, WP:MOSSIS says,


 * Sister project links should generally appear in the "External links" section, not under See also. Two exceptions are Wiktionary and Wikisource links that may even be linked inline . . ..


 * [Emphasis supplied.] As another participant in that discussion wrote,


 * Of course it may be useful to link to the Wiktionary entry, but that should be . . . presented as supplementing rather than substantiating the article.


 * That's how I've used the reference to Wiktionary in this article. J. D. Crutchfield &#124; Talk 19:27, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * If you want to use Wiktionary to supplement the article, the right way to do that is with a template (which is what User:Visviva was talking about in the comment you quoted), with a link in the external links section, or perhaps with a wikilink (which is what WP:MOSSIS is talking about in the sentence you bolded). Citations with tags are for reliable sources, and should not link to Wiktionary (except when it is being used as a primary source in an article about Wiktionary itself). The article already contains a  template, which should be sufficient. If you insist on adding an inline link as well, as described in WP:MOSSIS, I won't object to that either. But the citation in tags is not acceptable. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Mr. Granger has more time and energy for these trivia than I have. J. D. Crutchfield &#124; Talk 21:27, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * From that comment and your edit summary, I take it that you're okay with removing the citation, so I have done so. —Granger (talk · contribs) 06:05, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

What if unrelated people just have identical names?
When I was learning English as a foreign language, we were told that the English word namesake corresponds to Russian тёзка, which is used to denote any person sharing one's given name - any John Smith and John Baker. We teachers mistaken? We have the word однофамильцы for unrelated people sharing their family names - unrelated John Smith and Bill Smith or Mary Smith. If possibly unrelated people share first, last (and possibly middle name or patronymics), they are полные (complete) тёзки. Didn't find this in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GregZak (talk • contribs) 22:29, 30 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, according to four of the six dictionaries cited in this article, unrelated people who have the same name can also be called "namesakes" of each other. Two of the dictionaries (Oxford and Collins Cobuild) do not even contain the meaning of being named "for" or "after" someone or something else and simply says that "[a namesake is] a person or thing that has the same name as another" or "someone's or something's namesake has the same name as they do". The two dictionaries that do not have this meaning, are both historical dictionaries. -- leuce (talk) 07:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Update needed
The sentence here:

"The opposing term, referring to the original entity after which something else was named, is called an eponym" 

seems to imply something that is not necessarily true. The "opposing term" can also be called a namesake. For example, it is very common for a historical home or museum to refer to the person they are named after as their namesake. And this is not wrong, according to the dictionary. Note for example,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/namesake

In Merriam Webster, the definititon is:

especially : one who is named after another or for whom another is named'''

That "especially" is not absolute, it allows for the relation to work in the other direction. Look it up on Internet -- historical homes and museums named after the person who lived there do NOT refer to that person as their "eponym." Nor should they. That person is rightfully their namesake. AtomAnt (talk) 23:29, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Same first and last names
How we call the people who have Same first and last names but different middle name? first last namesake? Double namesake? Kaiyr (talk) 09:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)